241 booking issues

I’m sure this has been mentioned twice today already! I guess we’ll have to wait and see as BA CS staff familiarise themselves with the new guidance.

kelliea1 wrote:

Do you have the US number please?

It varies based on status, log into your exe club and look up contact.

I’m trying to book for Tokyo in the next couple of days but don’t hold out much hope for Business Class.
Other option I’m now thinking of is going to Shanghai staying 1 night and 2.5 hours to Tokyo next day.
Then might get the return from Tokyo, if not do the same on way back.

Has anyone done this or another interesting stopover for Tokyo route?

salbags wrote:

I’m trying to book for Tokyo in the next couple of days but don’t hold out much hope for Business Class.
Other option I’m now thinking of is going to Shanghai staying 1 night and 2.5 hours to Tokyo next day.
Then might get the return from Tokyo, if not do the same on way back.

Has anyone done this or another interesting stopover for Tokyo route?

Beijing is another option. Shanghai is a spectacular looking and exciting city to visit in the same way as Hong Kong, but so much of the old city has been razed to the ground and there are fewer sights to see vs Beijing which may be less impressive to look at in some ways and relatively few skyscrapers but has kept some of the old districts, has many more incredible cultural sights. It’s more traditional and low key than Shanghai which was, pre covid, heaving with expats and tourists so too many places just organised around them. Beijing is also significantly less expensive for accommodation and dining.

@Reney – I don’t think it is a big enough group to matter overall to matter commercially, but it’s big enough to be inconvenient for overseas call centres. I don’t know if it will be stopped now, or in the future but it will eventually cease as too many sheep believe the trope that it’s necessary to make these late night calls which, together with references to “hen’s teeth” routes has created an unfortunate panic.

JDB wrote:

@Reney – I don’t think it is a big enough group to matter overall to matter commercially, but it’s big enough to be inconvenient for overseas call centres. I don’t know if it will be stopped now, or in the future but it will eventually cease as too many sheep believe the trope that it’s necessary to make these late night calls which, together with references to “hen’s teeth” routes have created an unfortunate panic.

I agree with most of what you are saying. Although not sure about whether it is unnecessary to book so early. Rob has said before he has never done it and always found availabilities. However, he has also admitted to use his Gold status double avois availability and often use a number of different programs where he also has a stash of points. Even amongst the HFP membership not many are in that sort of position.

Also for most, holiday destination could be flexible but if you want to visit family you are pretty stuck on route. Add on to that those bounded by school holidays. I’ve for one really struggled to find availabilities to HK for a long time now for short or medium notice.

Reney wrote:

JDB wrote:

@Reney – I don’t think it is a big enough group to matter overall to matter commercially, but it’s big enough to be inconvenient for overseas call centres. I don’t know if it will be stopped now, or in the future but it will eventually cease as too many sheep believe the trope that it’s necessary to make these late night calls which, together with references to “hen’s teeth” routes have created an unfortunate panic.

I agree with most of what you are saying. Although not sure about whether it is unnecessary to book so early. Rob has said before he has never done it and always found availabilities. However, he has also admitted to use his Gold status double avois availability and often use a number of different programs where he also has a stash of points. Even amongst the HFP membership not many are in that sort of position.

Also for most, holiday destination could be flexible but if you want to visit family you are pretty stuck on route. Add on to that those bounded by school holidays. I’ve for one really struggled to find availabilities to HK for a long time now for short or medium notice.

My main driver, to be fair, used to be the cap of 2 guaranteed CW seats. I can imagine, now there are four available, that we might in future book a year in advance but this really doesn’t work with our lifestyle! I don’t even know where we’re going to go for May half term and that is in 5 weeks.

Reney wrote:

I need 3 seats for HKG and cannot earn the new vouchers as fast as they would be useful. Am always looking out for good ways to earn more avios so that I can afford to redeem on Cathy given can’t use vouchers. Honestly can’t find availabilities on CP on BA either 😔

I travel to HKG regularly as well to visit family. CX doesn’t guarantee seat availability unlike BA, and especially since pent-up demand from HK is high, they’ll rather sell seats for cash rather than release them as reward flights, in particular in business/first class.

My tips for this route, if you want a business/first class seat, would be:
(1) Redeem an Economy first for the dates you want, and then ‘trade-up’ to business/first whenever BA/CX releases award seats. Since CX is still in reinstating flights and yet to confirm their full schedule for the Winter 2023/2024 season, they may decide to release more reward availability once that’s confirmed later in the year (Their winter timetable is currently only showing as 2 daily flights to LHR), but I suspect they’ll raise it back to 4 or 5 just like their summer schedule

(2) If you’re using Amex 2-4-1, then try searching up availability from other regional airports in the UK, for example Manchester. This might release some more availability.

(3) If you don’t mind not flying direct, then Finnair and Qatar Airways tend to also be relatively easy to have availability to HK across all classes

If you’re low on Avios to redeem CX flights, then you can do what I do and go for the Avios subscription which is what I do. You can subscribe to a maximum of 200,000 Avios for “only” £1789 a year. And that’s exactly the number of Avios required for a direct HK flight in business class, which is much cheaper than buying a return cash ticket even after considering taxes/fees/charges.

@JDB I think it genuinely does depend where you are going. The fact that some destinations DO have all 4 (initially guaranteed) available CW seats snapped up within 20 minutes shows that if you DIDN’T phone at 1am (or book online with full Avios) you’d miss out. For me personally, I’d much rather 1am than 8am, but that’s just my personal preference.
I agree that for most routes, additional I-class “may” pop up down the line, but I think for the Gatwick LH routes in particular, this is less likely due to the small CW cabin.

FatherOfFour wrote:

@JDB I think it genuinely does depend where you are going. The fact that some destinations DO have all 4 (initially guaranteed) available CW seats snapped up within 20 minutes shows that if you DIDN’T phone at 1am (or book online with full Avios) you’d miss out. For me personally, I’d much rather 1am than 8am, but that’s just my personal preference.
I agree that for most routes, additional I-class “may” pop up down the line, but I think for the Gatwick LH routes in particular, this is less likely due to the small CW cabin.

I believe it is more complex and dynamic than you suggest! I’m absolutely not talking about a few seats popping up later, nearer departure. I don’t know about Sydney that some mention as being difficult as I wouldn’t wish to travel there with BA or advise anyone else to, but I do have direct experience of the other routes I mentioned and several more. There are many myths that develop on HfP and the absolute necessity for the midnight/1am call as the only solution is one of them; there is more than one way skin a cat. I note also that for some reason a surprising number of seats booked in the middle of the night seem to be opportunistic/speculative bookings that come back into inventory quite quickly. As mentioned on another thread, SeatSpy for some reason often seems to have significant lags and inconsistencies with actual, non enhanced, availability so I don’t rely on it. Some routes we travel regularly have extraordinarily fluctuating/dynamic availability and clearly as you say it is a bit route dependent but the supposed disappearance of four seats at 1am isn’t the end of the story even on the most sought after routes.

If it’s a limited schedule or popular route, and you absolutely have to go within a certain timeframe (school holidays for eg), and you have 4 pax to worry about, then booking at midnight GMT is (at least in my experience) a must-do.

If you’re travelling with one person, have any sort of date flex even within school holidays, then it’s not necessary.

I’ve only been a semi-serious points collector / 241 redeemer for a decade and a half or so, but in that time, after we had both kids, it became impossible to get 4 club tickets on long haul exactly when we needed them except for high frequency schedule flights like New York. In fact, until the recent guarantee of 4x club on every flight & extra availability unlocked by companion vouchers (esp. starting regionally), I’d just about given up using them and redeemed avios for RFS in Club Europe

@kevinchoi thanks for taking the time to write down some tips. I have never thought to book economy and trade-up. It does mean at least the seats have been secured. The only problem with that is once you have used the 241 you can’t search for when I availabilities come up. Based on my experience with seatspy lately on this route nothing comes up!

On 2/3 Because we live <1 hour drive to Heathrow and my dad has a disability, we are only willing to fly direct from London. I think we would rather fly economy than add a lot of time to the journey itself if we had to go at a specific time.

Fingers crossed that you are right and more CX flights will appear. I think BA was always 2 per day, but given VA doesn’t fly that route anymore and demand, I am hoping BA will up their frequency.